


you are a language i have learned by heart

by Hellozombies



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: All And More, Language as Emotional Foreplay, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:28:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25808146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hellozombies/pseuds/Hellozombies
Summary: There’s no more screams of hurt or dying men or sounds of metal crashing together. They are the only things still living.Nicolò drops his sword on the ground. Too tired to throw it. He’s done. He’s done trying to kill and be killed by this man.“Peace,” he pulls out the dagger and drops that as well. “Peace.”
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 2
Kudos: 241





	you are a language i have learned by heart

There’s no more screams of hurt or dying men or sounds of metal crashing together. They are the only things still living.

Nicoló drops his sword on the ground. Too tired to throw it. He’s done. He’s done trying to kill and be killed by this man.

“Peace,” he pulls out the dagger and drops that as well. “Peace.”

The man is watching him carefully, his expression doesn’t change throughout Nicoló talking. He knows the man cannot understand his language, he knows he’ll have to express himself by his voice and body.

He drops to one knee and repeats himself, gentling out his voice. He motions to his weapon, covered in so much blood it looked rusted, and shakes his head.

He doesn’t see the man move, and is staring up at the starry sky, with his hand on his bloody neck. He doesn’t think about anything this death, not his family, his land, nor his god. He only sees the sky.

He comes back coughing out blood. There is pressure on his neck and he thinks the man is strangling him, one more attempt when so many had failed. When Nicoló meets the man’s eyes, they are desperate and fearful. The man lifts his hand off Nicoló’s neck and turns his face to the sky.

Nicoló watches him, watches him suck in large amounts of air, over and over. He watches him not out caution, but out of discovery. The man means something to him, and he has yet to figure it out.

The man looks down at Nicoló, still laying where he fell over dead, and drops the knife. “Raha. Raha. Peace.”

*

They collect what they can from the battle. Food, water, money, and clothes. They keep their weapons down.

Before they leave, Nicoló pulls off his cross. He uses a little water to get the blood off of it, his own and the man’s. He brings it up to his lips as a benediction and lets it fall into the sand. He died for his god, and his god kept him here. It was time to find a new path.

The man does the same with a thin piece of cloth. He wraps it into the cross and lets it fall back to get buried in sand.

In that moment, Nicoló never felt more understood, and with the heavy sun shining off of the man’s dark hair, he never saw anything more beautiful.

*

They move in the opposite way of both armies, away from every battle. They had no destination, and knew neither of them could return home. They both died when the met each other. They were both in the living afterlife. They both were comforted knowing they were sharing being alone.

*

They were sharing a hut, one abandoned by choice or by one the many massacred around outside.

Yusuf had a small fire going and had just finished when the man said excitedly and too loud, “Nicoló!”

Having had to spend an agonizing amount of time trying to understand and learn each other’s languages, Yusuf pointed to the fire, “Nicoló?”

The man eyebrows came together, like they always did when he was confused. “No, fuoco,” he said motioning to the fire. “Nicoló,” he says when putting is hand on his chest.

Yusuf mirrored the pose, “Nicoló?” The man had such an exasperated look that it made Yusuf laugh. “You are Nicoló?” He asked, motioning to Nicoló.

“Si! Mi chaimo Nicoló!” Yusuf laughed again, the man was endearing, he would give him that.

“Hello, Nicoló. My name is Yusuf.”

“Name?”

“Yusuf.” He corrected and Nicoló smiled wide.

“Yusuf! Yusuf!” The man spoke softly, almost reverently. He didn’t know if Nicoló was aware of how he said Yusuf’s name, but regardless, Yusuf wanted to kiss it right off of Nicoló’s lips.

He settled for a smile instead.

*

They talk about the women in their dreams, one early morning. Yusuf had woken up violently with Nicoló staring awake at him.

“Dream?” He asks, pointing to his head. “Dream woke me.” His eyes are tired, Yusuf rubs his own. To stop him from staring into them and to commit the women to memory.

“Dream. Two women fighting.”

“Women of the east?”

Yusuf looks back at him, surprised. “Yes! Do you dream of them, as well?”

“Many nights dreamed.” Nicoló gets up to move closer to him. “Like us?”

“I did not dream of you before we met,” he says seriously, but chuckles when he thinks of it, “Maybe I would have killed you less.”

Nicoló smiles even though he doesn’t understand all of what Yusuf is saying. He’s smiling because Yusuf is. Yusuf tries to get back to the matter at hand.

“Like us,” he agrees. “We should find them.”

“Lost?”

Yusuf doesn’t understand that. Does he mean the women are lost? Or that they were? Yusuf certainly felt lost, at times.

It must have shown on his face, because Nicoló grabbed his hand and brought it up to their faces. “Together.”

“We find them together?” Yusuf was caught back in those eyes, trapped in a prison he would never leave, even though the door had always been open.

Nicoló put both of his hands between is own, and holds on strong but not constricting. So sure, so gentle. “We stay. Together.”

 _Yes,_ Yusuf thinks _, we’re meant to be together._

*

They travel northeast. They study maps, they talk and trade with the people they find. They learn each other’s native languages. Yusuf has more success with Nicoló’s than his with Yusuf’s. It amuses Yusuf and annoys Nicoló to Yusuf’s delight.

They pick up the scraps of languages and dialects across the continent. They speak words in constructed sentences from so many tongues. A type of new language that only they could speak and be fluent in.

They start each day with the sun in front of them and end with it behind them on their backs.

*

They don’t mean to get in the middle of a battle. They don’t even know who fighting is in the right or wrong. They fight along the men in the village. The men are farmers, not soldiers, and they die in an alarming rate. They do what they can to get the women and the children to safety. They stand and fight to buy time for them to run.

They are separated after awhile. After the village is mostly destroyed, Nicoló gets desperate to find Yusuf. He get a few arrows in his back and more than a few slices, but he finds Yusuf on the ground next to a flaming hut. Yusuf doesn’t stay down for long, he stumbles when he gets up, already running to Nicoló.

Nicoló doesn’t think, he gets to Yusuf and kisses him as hard as he can. He doesn’t even realize Yusuf is kissing him back until he hears Yusuf repeating his name in between the kisses. It is his name but it sounds more like _finally, finally_.

*

They wash themselves and everything they have in the next river they find. They are exhausted and don’t even bother with a fire.

Nicoló is naked when Yusuf touches him. First with his hand on his shoulder, then quickly with lips on that shoulder. Nicoló is pulled quickly against Yusuf’s. They are both cold and wet, but Nicoló shivers when Yusuf starts starts mouthing at his shoulder then his neck.

He’s overwhelmed, but he wants more. He rips himself away from Yusuf to fall on his back and pull Yusuf on top of him. He wants Yusuf everywhere, to engulf him, to be inside of him. To bury a part of him in Nicoló, to match the part of Yusuf already has in Nicoló’s heart. He wraps his legs around Yusuf’s chest, offering up himself.

Yusuf looks the beast that his people said he was. But Nicoló knows Yusuf is no beast, he knows Yusuf. He know he’s hungry, as hungry as Nicoló is for him.

It’s indescribable, the feeling of Yusuf’s weight on him, the kisses he makes and misses on Nicoló’s mouth, the force of the way Yusuf thrusts inside of him.

When it ends for him, he makes an inhuman yell, starting between Yusuf lips and ending in the dark quiet night. Yusuf makes a mixture of a moan and a whimper at hearing him and loses himself completely in Nicoló

It’s quiet after their breaths even out, almost matching each other’s inhales and exhales. Nicoló focuses on the sky and wonders if it is the same painting of the stars as when the last time Yusuf had killed him. 

As if this was the start of another life.

*

“How many languages do you speak?” Nile asks, voice full of surprised exasperation.

They are in a house outside of São Paulo, resting in an continent not filled with new ghosts.

“All of them,” Nicky answers smug. “We had a few years free to learn.”

Nile laughs, “Which one is your favorite?”

It’s not until later when Joe and Nicky are alone that Nicky asks Joe what his answers to Nile’s question would be.

Joe gives it some thought, but does not answer.

“One of the love languages, perhaps?” Nicky teases him, touching his arm. “There’s many we outlived.”

“Close, but no,” Joe takes that hand and kisses Nicky’s knuckles. “My favorite language is the language of you.”

*

*

*

_“Most of what happens happens beyond words.  
_

_The lexicon of lip and fingertip  
_

_defies translation into common speech.  
_

_I recognize the musk of your dark hair.  
_

_It always thrills me, though I can't describe it.  
_

_My finger on your thigh does not touch skin—  
_

_it touches your skin warming to my touch.  
_

_You are a language I have learned by heart.”_

_-_ Marriage of Many Years

**Author's Note:**

> &
> 
> “You could, I don’t know, settle down somewhere, maybe start a family.”
> 
> They are playing a card game, one Andy swore she didn’t know how to play, just to see Nile get worked up about it. ‘You’re how old? And you never heard of it!’
> 
> Andy keeps her eyes down on her cards, fingering the pair of aces. “Don’t need to. I already have one.”
> 
> She sees Nile’s soft smile out the corner of her eye, and she feels bittersweet satisfaction.
> 
> &


End file.
